Other forms: excuses, excused, excusing
An excuse is the reason you give for not doing what you should have done. The train was late, the dog ate it, my phone died. Everyone recognises an excuse when they hear one.
The verb sounds different from the noun: the noun ends in a soft s, ex-CUSE, and the verb ends in a z, ex-CUZE. You excuse a person, meaning you forgive them, and you excuse yourself when you get up from the table. 'Excuse me' does three jobs — squeezing past someone, apologising for a small rudeness, and, said sharply, objecting to what was just said. A thing can be 'an excuse for' something, meaning a sorry version of it: that grey soup was an excuse for lunch. And when a fault cannot be defended at all, there is no excuse for it.
1nounexcuseA reason given to explain a fault or a failure to do something.~87%
“She made an excuse about the traffic and slipped into her seat.”
synonyms: pretext, justification
2verbforgiveTo forgive a fault, or to accept the reason given for it.~9%
“Nothing excuses that kind of rudeness.”
3verbfreeTo free someone from a duty, or to allow them to leave.~2%
“The teacher excused her from swimming for a week.”
4nounpoorA very poor example of something.~2%
“He called that damp shed a poor excuse for a workshop.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 11 sentences found in the wild and placed 11 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
excuse is a reason offered in defence.
Behind excuse is a courtroom. Latin excūsō is ex, 'out', plus causa, 'a charge': to excuse someone was to take them out of the accusation. It came through Old French escuser into Middle English and pushed aside the older native verb lādian, which had done the same work.
Latin
excūsō
Old French
escuser
Middle English
excusen
English, today
excuse
Built from
From Middle English excusen, from Old French escuser, from Latin excūsō. From Middle English excusen and excuse, borrowed from Old French escuser and excuse, from Latin excuso (“to excuse, allege in excuse, literally, free from a charge”), from ex (“out”) + causa (“a charge”); see cause, accuse and recuse. Displaced native lād and lādian (“to excuse”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA